Spring is right around the corner, and for many of us that means show season is here! Are you getting ready to show your dog? How do you decide when your dog is ready? What shows to enter? How many shows in a row do you enter? All of these can greatly affect your performance […]
Archive | General
A New Path
A New Path Over the years my training and my training business have been a work in progress. I always strive to make training enjoyable for the dog as well as the student, and over the years have adjusted my classes and my own training to reflect that. I also decided a long time ago, […]
Side Effects of Good Training
Many of you reading this have met my dog, Einstein, through one of Margaret’s courses either as a demo dog, or more recently working her nose work classes. What most of you don’t know is Einstein’s whole story. Einstein is my first dog (ever!), and I didn’t really know what I was doing when I […]
Reward Placement to Help Your Heeling
“Click for action, feed for position”- Bob Bailey Remembering to use your reward to your advantage can help you in a lot of training situations, including heeling. Happy training everyone!
Balancing it All – Training for Titles with Limited Time
This blog is written by guest writer – Trisha As I write this it’s the first week back at school. Last weekend I stewarded at the local obedience trial, did an obedience match, and presented a group award for my kennel club’s conformation show. Next week agility class starts, I have an ORT 10 hours […]
Free Your Training From This Frequent Error
You see, but you do not observe”-Sherlock Holmes Free your training from this frequent error The above quote is something that really fits all dog sports training. You need to not just “see” behavior of your dog, but you need to observe it. Observation involves noting changes and perceiving what is really happening in […]
Positive Reinforcement – Friend or Foe?
There it is, that stupid lag on the fast again! Or maybe foot movement on the Stand For Exam? How about a dog that finds a nose work hide and runs to you for reinforcement instead of staying there? Any of this sound familiar? Many times our use of positive reinforcement in training can […]
“Normal” Dog Training
I wish I had some magic pill, the kind that fixes everything. No, I would rather have the pill that never lets anything break, especially in my training. Do you find yourself having a nice retrieve behavior and now you seem to have mouthing attached to it? Or did you have a killer Drop On […]
The Gift of Safety
I was thinking recently about the role feeling safe plays in good training. How I want my dog to feel that no matter what choice they make, the worst thing that will happen is loss of reward. But what really is safety? What does that mean? According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, safety is defined as: “freedom […]
Go Treat Yourself Like a Dog Today
It’s those little tiny moves toward what we want in a behavior that we reward when shaping our dogs. So, they may go from nose touching a dumbbell, to slightly opening their mouths, we see that change toward what we want and we make note of it, reward it, letting the dog know we want […]
